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Most Efficient Mash and Batch Sparge Process

Pompeysie

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I'd welcome your advice and thoughts on the process I am following here.

For this brew (theoretical), I am using the BrewSmith "Single Infusion, Medium Body" mash profile. I am going to batch sparge, and have therefore selected that option in the mash profile. In order to account for the lower potential efficiency of a batch sparge (and as this is one of my first brews) I have reduced my brewhouse efficiency by 5% (from 75 to 70%).

The following is the process I will follow for mashing and sparging.

1. Mash In (9.55l @ 77.4C) - Steep for 60 min (maintaining a mash temperature of approx. 65C).
2. Mash Out (5.35l @ 95.2C) - Steep for 10 min.
3. Slowly drain mash tun.
4. Recirculate (vorlauf) the first 4 or 5 litres through the grain bed.
5. Completely drain mash tun.
6. Add 5.4l of sparge water @ 75.6C (according to BeerSmith). Gently stir and steep for 10 mins.
7. Slowly drain mash tun.
8. Recirculate (vorlauf) the first 4 or 5 litres through the grain bed.
9. Completely drain mash tun.
10 Add 16.63l of sparge water @ 75.6C (according to BeerSmith). Gently stir and steep for 10 mins.
11. Slowly drain mash tun.
12. Recirculate (vorlauf) the first 4 or 5 litres through the grain bed.
13. Completely drain mash tun.

Would anyone add any steps, or not bother with some of them? Your thoughts are most welcome.

Best wishes

Simon
 
I'm not sure what you mean by "efficient".  Do you mean time efficiency or brewing efficiency

Assuming that you mean time efficiency :

1.  Skip the mash out and just combine that water with your mash in. A thinner mash is a little more forgiving, and the mash out doesn't really domuch. 
2.  There is no need to steep after a sparge addition. Just add the water, stir real well, and go straight to vorlauf. 
3.  There is rarely a need to "slowly" drain the mlt. Vorlauf slowly to set the grain bed.  Once the wort runs clear (no grain bits) open the valve full and let 'er rip. 

To make this work in beersmith change your mash profile to the "no mash out"  variety.  Then bump up your mash thickness until your first and second runnings are approximately equal.  0.75 l/kg is probably close.
 
Thanks for the reply Tom. By efficiency I mean't in terms of extracting the most amount of sugars from the grain. 

I wasn't clear about what you meant when you said "Then bump up your mash thickness until your first and second runnings are approximately equal.  0.75 l/kg is probably close.".

Cheers

Simon
 
Hmmm.  Ok. I don't recommend chasing extract efficiency.  High efficiency generally makes lower quality beer. 70 to 75 is about the ideal on the homebrew sscale. That said.. 

There are two efficiencies :

1. Conversion efficiency -  the pct of malt that is converted to sugar.
2. Extract efficiency - the pct of sugar removed from the mlt through sparging.

Conversion efficiency is driven by two things :

1.  Grain crush. The finer the crush, the higher the conversion pct. I don't recommend pulverizing the grain though. You could in a batch sparge, and some people do.  But, you run a much higher risk of getting a stuck sparge. If you docrush to fflour then add 1 lb if rice hulls at dough in.

2.  Thoroughness of mixing during dough in. Every bit  of malt must get completely wet,  or it will not convert. A thinner mash helps ensure that. But, a thinner mash will dilute the enzymes and may slow conversion. So, it is a bit of a balancing act. I get my most consistent results using a thin mash of 2 qt / lb or about 0.5 l / kg. But, I don't chase efficiency, I'm happy with 70 pct. I just want the same every time.

Extract Efficiency in a batch sparge process is  driven by a couple things.

1.  Always ensure your batches provide equal amount of runnings.
2.  More batches will increase your extract efficiency by as much as 10 pct, over just the two that I recommend.  You can gain 5 pct with a third batch, about 2 with a 4th batch, 1 with a 5th, etc.  Each batch sparge step will add 15 minutes to your sparge duration; how much time is that last but of extract worth?

I'll post later today how to make bs2 create a mash profile that sparges this way.
 
Brilliant reply Tom thanks!

I look forward to reading your post about the mash profile.

Thanks again.

Simon
 
Hi Tom

back in January you said you would post "how to make bs2 create a mash profile that sparges this way". Did you do this? It would be mighty useful for me because I am still a little confused about the way to go with Mash profiles.

Cheers

Simon



tom_hampton said:
Hmmm.  Ok. I don't recommend chasing extract efficiency.  High efficiency generally makes lower quality beer. 70 to 75 is about the ideal on the homebrew sscale. That said.. 

There are two efficiencies :

1. Conversion efficiency -  the pct of malt that is converted to sugar.
2. Extract efficiency - the pct of sugar removed from the mlt through sparging.

Conversion efficiency is driven by two things :

1.  Grain crush. The finer the crush, the higher the conversion pct. I don't recommend pulverizing the grain though. You could in a batch sparge, and some people do.  But, you run a much higher risk of getting a stuck sparge. If you docrush to fflour then add 1 lb if rice hulls at dough in.

2.  Thoroughness of mixing during dough in. Every bit  of malt must get completely wet,  or it will not convert. A thinner mash helps ensure that. But, a thinner mash will dilute the enzymes and may slow conversion. So, it is a bit of a balancing act. I get my most consistent results using a thin mash of 2 qt / lb or about 0.5 l / kg. But, I don't chase efficiency, I'm happy with 70 pct. I just want the same every time.

Extract Efficiency in a batch sparge process is  driven by a couple things.

1.  Always ensure your batches provide equal amount of runnings.
2.  More batches will increase your extract efficiency by as much as 10 pct, over just the two that I recommend.  You can gain 5 pct with a third batch, about 2 with a 4th batch, 1 with a 5th, etc.  Each batch sparge step will add 15 minutes to your sparge duration; how much time is that last but of extract worth?

I'll post later today how to make bs2 create a mash profile that sparges this way.
 
morticaixavier said:
I'll add that .5l/kg is more like .25 qt/lb. way too thick. try ~4l/kg it's just right.

Thanks. Good catch. Went the wrong way in my head for the conversion. 
 
Simon, no I haven't.  I've been swamped with work stuff this year. Not much time to sit in front of beersmith and verifymy nnotes.
 
I had a chance to work through this today, while preparing to brew.  There may be other ways, but here is what works for me:

In your standard mash profiles,

1.  set the water to grist ratio to something low, such as 1.0 to 1.25 qt/lb.
2.  Check "use equal batch sizes".
3.  Uncheck "drain mashtun before sparging".

When you create a recipe, add one of the above standard mash profiles to the recipe.

Note: the sparge will say something like:

"Batch sparge with 2 steps (1.97gal, 5.00 gal) of 180.0F water."

In the first sparge, what beersmith is doing here is adding enough water to the mash-tun so that the runnings from 1st sparge and second sparge will be equal at 5.0gal. 

You can just do it that way, although recent posts from Brewfun suggest that this 1.97 gal addition should be ~30min into the mash.  I did it this way for about a year.  The I switched to adding it all at the beginning.  To get Beersmith to do that:

1.  Note the volume of the first sparge (1.97 gal in my example).
2.  Edit the mash-in step, and add the noted volume to the mash-in volume (eg, 1.97 gal).
3.  click "OK".

Now Beersmith will calculate the strike temperature of the entire volume.

The caveat to this approach is that you start with a template mash-profile, but ultimately you end up with a custom mash-profile for every recipe.  That doesn't both me.  But, if it bothers you, then stick with the first method. 

The first method does have one advantage:  it gives you an opportunity to adjust your mash-temperature, if it drops lower than you wanted. 








 
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